


Good Interlopers and Bad Hamburgers

by AstroGirl



Category: Futurama, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3871030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to Night Vale, Dr. Zoidberg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Interlopers and Bad Hamburgers

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar. Of course. I mean, how else would I have come up with such a wonderfully bizarre crossover?
> 
> **Note:** May contain spoilers for _Night Vale_ 's "One Year Later." Has none whatsoever for _Futurama_.

Dr. Zoidberg emerged from his dumpster into a bright, muggy New New York morning, brushing bits of non-digestible garbage from his clothes and humming a little tune. He had a good feeling about today. The Professor might send him on a delivery, maybe! Or someone would carelessly cut off a limb, or cough up some sort of organ, and he could do some real doctoring! Okay, it was more likely everyone would just yell at him again, and that maybe was getting just a _little_ boring, but he refused to be negative on such a beautiful day. Why, even the city air smelled good!

_Food._

Zoidberg set out down the alley, toward the front of the Planet Express building...

_Foooooood._

...where his good pals would be waiting for him, and--

_Food!_

Zoidberg stopped. What _was_ that smell? He took a long, analytical sniff, and was immediately overwhelmed with the odor of greasy meat, old onions, and deep fat fryers that had never been cleaned. His mouth began to water uncontrollably, and he found himself slurping convulsively at his mouth tendrils. 

The smell was coming from behind him. He turned slowly, with great anticipation, and saw--

It was hole in space. Or in the alley. Or in the space in the alley. It was dark in a way that hurt the eyes more than light would have, and it pulsed in time with the complex beating of Decapodian hearts. Inside, despite the complete and painful absence of light, he could see thick, black tentacles and amorphous pseudopods roiling and reaching. Something inside it called to him, in a horrible, ancient language he should not have understood, but did.

And it smelled _wonderful_.

"Oh, boy!" he exclaimed. "Breakfast!" And he dived in.

**

The journey through the hole was... indescribable. And difficult to remember. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zoidberg was pretty sure that was a good thing.

**

And then he was somewhere else. Wherever he was, it was nighttime. The air was mummifyingly dry. There were strange, flickering lights in the sky, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the faint sound of screaming.

Zoidberg paid no attention to any of this. Instead, the entirety of his being was fixed on the building in front of him, the source of that delicious odor. It was awash in neon light the color of human bile. Or was that blood? They looked so much alike, he sometimes had trouble telling the difference.

The sign said: Moonlite All-Nite Diner. And it called to him.

**

Carlos sat in his usual booth, staring unhappily at his hamburger. The burgers at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner were never anything to write home about -- not that he would ever write home about anything he saw in Night Vale, as no one at home would ever believe any of it -- but the cook was experimenting with a new wheat-and-wheat-byproduct-free bun recipe again, and the results this time were especially unfortunate. Carlos had managed one bite. It had tasted faintly of blood, and decay, and something unnamed and primordial. Scientifically, he found it fascinating. As a diner... somewhat less so. Maybe he should take it back to the lab for analysis, instead.

Carlos was contemplating this question when the giant bipedal lobster walked in.

It headed right for Carlos's booth, which was closest to the door. (Carlos had quickly learned that, in Night Vale, it was often useful to position yourself in such a way that you could make a quick escape, if necessary.) It was drooling and slavering. The tendrils that hung down in front of its mouth were twitching uncontrollably, and its stomach was making loud rumbling noises. So, just as a tentative hypothesis, it was probably hungry.

It pointed at Carlos's burger. "Are you going to eat that?" it said, hopefully.

"Uh, no, I--"

With a massive _slurp!_ , the burger was gone. So was the plate it had been sitting on. The creature let out an "Aaaaaah!" of immense satisfaction. Then it spit the plate back out onto the table.

Carlos looked around at the other diners. One or two were looking over in idle curiosity. A couple more were very carefully not looking at the creature, probably just in case it turned out to be something they weren't supposed to know about or believe in. Everyone else was calmly eating their food as if they saw things as strange as man-sized, burger-stealing lobsters every day. Which... Okay, fair enough.

"Thank you, friend!" said the lobster. It -- or, judging by the voice, he -- spoke English with the inflection of someone whose native language was Yiddish. Why a giant, sentient _Jewish_ lobster should be any weirder than a giant, sentient lobster period, Carlos didn't know. It was a psychologically interesting phenomenon.

The creature stuck out its claw in what, after an abortive flinch, Carlos somehow recognized as a friendly gesture. Tentatively, he reached out and shook it. "Hi," he said. Then, looking the creature up and down, he suddenly noticed something cool. "Hey, nice lab coat!"

The lobster preened a little. "I am a doctor!" He looked very proud. "Of actual medicine!"

Carlos sat up a little straighter in his chair and brushed the lapels of his own lab coat. "I'm a scientist!" he announced, with equal pride. "I'm Carlos, by the way."

"Zoidberg!" the lobster said. It took Carlos a moment to realize that he was giving his name, not uttering some sort of strange lobster-man curse word. Zoidberg slid into the booth across from him. "What kind of science?" he asked.

Carlos blinked. "Why does everyone ask me that? I am a scientist. I do _science_."

"Okay," said Zoidberg. Then, "You should meet my friend the Professor, why not! He loves science. Always with the zapping things and the inventing things and the growing things in vats."

Carlos felt a surge of excitement. He hadn't known there were any scientists in town except the ones he'd brought with him. "I'd love to," he said. "Where is he?"

Zoidberg looked as confused as it is possible for a giant lobster to look. Which was considerably more than Carlos would have thought. "I don't know. I don't know where _I_ am. There was a smell. An amazing, _wonderful_ smell. And then the hole, with the tentacles and the pseudopods, and the ancient horrible voices echoing in my mind. Are there any more of those delicious hamburgers?" 

"Uh, sure." Carlos flagged over a waiter. "Can my friend here get another hamburger?"

"No problem," said the waiter, popping his gum. "What do you want on that?"

"Everything!" said Zoidberg.

"Um," said Carlos, "that's not necessarily a good idea here..."

" _Everything!_ " Zoidberg insisted, and the waiter nodded and drifted off. Literally: his feet never quite touched the floor. Carlos had always meant to ask him about that.

"So, it sounds like you came through some kind of dimensional void," Carlos said.

Zoidberg shrugged, picked up a handful of sugar packets, and ate them whole.

"I have an idea about that," Carlos said. "It is not a scientific idea, which makes me suspicious of it. But it is an idea I have been thinking about more and more. My idea is this: that when people arrive in Night Vale, whether for reasons they don't understand, or for reasons they think they do understand, the real reason they arrive is because some part of them needs to. Because there is something here... something here that they need." Catching the still-hungry look on Zoidberg's face, he added, "Something more important than hamburgers. Probably."

"More important than hamburgers?" said Zoidberg, looking impressed. "That _is_ important!"

Carlos's attempt to think of a good response to that was abruptly interrupted by Teddy Williams bursting through the diner's front door and skidding to a stop in front of Carlos's booth. Judging from his heavy breathing, he must have run all the way from the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Which was only next door, but then this was a man who considered bowling the only necessary form of exercise.

"Carlos!" said Teddy. "I knew I'd seen you come in here earlier. Man, am I glad you're still here." Then, suddenly noticing Zoidberg, his breathless voice shifted to a calm, polite one. "Oh, hello. Nice to meet you."

"Hello!" said Zoidberg happily, waving a claw.

"What's wrong?" said Carlos. The memory of a very, very bad day underneath the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex elbowed its way into his mind, and he found himself suppressing a shiver.

"Oh," said Teddy, apparently noticing Carlos's reaction. "No, it's nothing like that. Not even all that big of a deal, really. It's just... Well, I could use your help. My damn fool brother-in-law insulted Old Woman Josie's technique after her third seven-ten split of the night. And then, after she left, one of the Erikas came back and rearranged all his internal organs. Seemed to think it was funny. He ain't laughing, though. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to try digesting snack bar french fries with your spleen?"

"Not really," said Carlos. "What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know," said Teddy. "Maybe you could... bubble some test tubes at him? Do something sciencey. Seems like you manage to help with all kinds of things that way."

"Wait, wait," said Zoidberg, excitedly. "Do you need a doctor, maybe?"

"I _am_ a doctor," said Teddy. "I run a bowling alley. Of _course_ I'm a doctor. But this is a little beyond me. I haven't had to rearrange human organs in decades."

"I have!" Zoidberg warbled. "Spleens, hearts, gizzards, swim bladders... I know all of them, and where they go, even! If you want, I can maybe even do a little juggling act!" He mimed juggling human organs, complete with a noise that, Carlos thought, really was disturbingly like what you'd expect a human liver falling from a height into a giant lobster claw would sound like.

" _I'm_ not even sure where the swim bladder goes," said Teddy. "All I know, is, it sure doesn't belong in his ass, which is where it is now." He grinned and clapped Zoidberg on the shoulders. "Friend, I don't know who you are, but I'm damned glad you're here!"

"Hooray!" said Zoidberg. "I'm making friends! And helping!"

"Do you still want me to come?" said Carlos.

"Sure. The more the merrier, right?"

Carlos shoved the shivery memory back down into its nice, safe space again, burying it under the much better memories of what had come afterward, stood, and offered his hand to help Zoidberg out of the booth.

Just as Zoidberg got to his feet -- or should that be claws? -- the waiter arrived with his burger. Between the meat and the bun, Carlos could see lettuce, tomato, cheese, bits of rubber, bleeding mushrooms, human teeth, worms, and a few things he couldn't identify. Zoidberg grabbed it off the tray, stuffed it whole into his mouth, and let out an "Mmmmm!" and a satisfied burp. "I like this place!" he said. "The food here is _so good_!"

Carlos thanked the waiter, then hastily grabbed his water glass, and, following the usual custom, whispered "check please," into it, located the newly delivered check under the sugar packets, put some money on top of it, replaced the sugar, and listened to the swallowing sound as it disappeared into the table. It was a process he'd come to appreciate for its efficiency. 

"Okay," he said. "Let's go help somebody!"

As they exited the door, the diner's speakers burst into staticky life, and a familiar, mellifluous voice followed them on their way. "Welcome," it said, "to Night Vale."


End file.
